


Five Times Penny was Homesick in Brisbane and One Time She Wasn't

by thehaikubandit



Category: Matthew Swift Series - Kate Griffin
Genre: Australia, Gen, I'm not homesick you're homesick, Penny is amazing, Penny's year off, brisbane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehaikubandit/pseuds/thehaikubandit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some of Penny's adventures in Brisbane when she is sent off traveling around the world. Inspired by both Brisbane and SEQ Gothic posts on Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday drabble for a friend turned into a 5+1, so it is a little late, but it will update with time! Happy Birthday Tasha!

For an urban sorcerer in Brisbane, few places were better to be than Roma St Station at rush hour. Penny had been lucky enough to arrive early one October morning on a train from Sydney. While it was still very early, she could feel the potential of the place, and so, grabbing a coffee from a tiny cart she went back up onto a platform and waited. By eight, the waiting had paid off. 

It had been a hard journey from Sydney. Sorcerers were a very rare thing in Australia, and Penny was beginning to understand why. The huge distances between the tiny cities drained her. If it had not been for the thin line of power that was the train line, she wasn't sure what she would have done. Penny's exhaustion on arriving into Brisbane was less to do with the sleepless night she'd had and more to do with her magic being at its lowest she could remember. 

The commuters coming into the city from all sides directed energy through the station, and Penny stole as much as she could get away with. Between this and the coffee (now that was something that Australian's did do correctly) she was soon wide awake and buzzing with the energy of a new city. She looked at the map someone in Sydney had drawn for her with directions to a hostel and walked out of the station. To her complete surprise she found herself in the middle of a park. Overhead jacaranda trees were in bloom and the petals fell like a soft rain when the wind blew through the trees. 

There was a feeling in the park that Penny could not quite wrap her head around. She walked down some steps, but then somehow found she was higher up than when she started. Frowning, she walked further down the stairs, and now was even higher and somehow facing a completely different direction. It was only too late that she realised what the park reminded her of. Penny had been eleven when she was first shown a picture of an M. C. Escher drawing. The twisting staircases were mirrored here in front of her. She was trapped.

After half an hour Penny could feel the stolen energy from Roma St leaving her, slowly being absorbed into the twisted maze of steps and paths. She tried to ask a passing jogger for directions, but took a wrong step and ended up a hundred meters behind them. Her vision now had black spots dancing in front of it, and she sank onto a nearby bench. Luckily it didn't go anywhere. Her bag was heavy on her back, and she was sweating in the morning heat. While it was only spring, it was still far warmer than she was used to.

The strangeness of the city, the country and even the voices around her overwhelmed Penny. She was tired and missed London so hard that it hurt. If it had been up to her she never would have left. She had been coming to grips with who and what she was and how that fit into London. She had never felt happier in her life. But Matthew had taken her for a drink one evening and everything had changed. In retrospect she should have realised something was wrong when he paid for the drinks.

“I need you to travel,” he told her. “It's part of what you have to do as an apprentice. I did it, Bakker did it, everyone does it. And now it's your turn.”

“Why should I leave?” she asked. “I'm happy here, I have friends and a social life and I am a kick-arse apprentice. Are you planning on getting rid of me?”

“No,” said Matthew. “But you need to see the world. It gives you an extra point of view to look at all of,” he waved his hand around vaguely, “this.”  
She tried a different tactic. “How exactly am I supposed to travel with no money? It's not like being a sorcerer pays well.”

“I got you a grant from the Aldermen. Trust me, it'll be enough.”

And so with £100,000 in an international account she was escorted to the airport and put on a flight to New York. It had been six months so far of her year away, and it was both exciting and very lonely. While she made friends with people and even their cities, the stones of London were where she belonged. And now she had been beaten by a staircase.

“Are you ok?” The voice belonged an old woman walking her terrier. “You don't look too well darling.”

“I'm,” Penny hesitated, “Lost.” She probably shouldn't say something along the lines of “the stairs are holding me hostage” that sort of thing would have come across as crazy even for a tourist.

“You're a bit more than lost dear,” the woman said. “Your aura is all over the Park Lands! It's tangled between everything!” Of all the things Penny had expected to hear, that was not among them. 

“Where did you need to go?”

“I'm meant to be staying in a hostel,” Penny said “But I came out here from the station and I can't get out.” 

“Let's get you out then. We'll have to cut this loose I'm afraid.” She produced a pair of scissors from her bag and cut at something in the air. Penny suddenly felt lighter. She stood followed both the woman and dog out of the Park Lands.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It's nothing, Brisbane take a little while to get used to,” said the woman. “Whereabouts are you from?”

“London,” said Penny, tasting the stones and the air in the name. 

“Well, sorceress from London,” she said, “Hopefully by the time you're done in this city you might even have had a good time.”

“I hope so,” said Penny. “Thanks again!”

They had reached the main road now, and the woman pointed up the hill back past the station entrance. 

“The YHA is just up there,” she said. “Good luck dear!” She headed back into the Park Lands, her terrier trotting along behind her.

Penny adjusted her bag and headed towards a well deserved rest, knowing that she would be avoiding the Park Lands for a good while to come.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penny meets some locals and now I really want ice cream even though it's 9pm.

The following day when Penny braved Roma St again she avoided the Park Lands entirely. Instead she bought a gocard, having been told it was “the only way to get around” by a backpacker in her hostel dorm. She walked up the stairs to the bus way. And what a thing those were! A whole network of roads for no one but buses! Despite the complaining of the locals about the bus systems this was a wonder they took for granted.

Penny took the first bus coming along that said Southbank on the front and went to find her fellow tourists. She liked tourists, both at home and abroad. They nearly never violated parking laws, with almost all of them taking the tube or taxis. And since becoming a sorceress she had discovered something new about tourists. They carried their homes with them. It was like an aura, no, more like a smell. She could sense the energy around them, the bright lights of New York, the familiar taste of London and so many other cities she couldn't recognise. A hint of markets here, a taste of skyscrapers there, and the occasional person from the country who was a dead zone in her radar. 

After the homesickness getting stuck had caused her Penny wanted to find something familiar, and if tourists were supposed to go to Southbank, she would too. When she walked off the bus and down the stairs from the platform at Southbank she thought she must be in the wrong place. The girls at the YHA had told her about restaurants, a beach and markets. What she found instead was a dingy concrete underpass with a few of those children who feel about twelve, look it, and act like shits to make up for their own insecurities. Pushing her shoulders back she followed a group of people who seemed to know where they were going and finally ended up in the promised place.

Stopping to buy lunch, a burrito from a tequila bar that played protest music and who's patrons seemed to be ignoring the fact that it was only just noon she headed for the beach. Well, fake beach anyway. Among the splashing children and paddling mothers, Penny saw something that caught her eye. A group of completely naked, very blue, very translucent women. 

They must have been invisible to everyone else, she reasoned, or the paddling mothers would have something to say about it. Penny had met some naiads in the Hudson earlier in the year, and had found them excellent company. She took off her shoes, sat on the edge of the beach and said

“Hi, my name's Penny!”

It didn't have quite the reaction she was expecting. They giggled at her and tossed their hair, but said nothing in return. Instead they ignored her and started splashing water at a nearby ibis. She tried again:

“Hello, nice to meet you?”

This time she did get a response, but not from the people she was expecting. 

“Are you stupid or something?”

A short girl with bright red hair and rather a lot of piercings was looking at her.

Penny decided to take offense at this. She had been trying to be nice, and instead was ignored and then insulted. Australians!

“Are you always so nice to your tourists over here? Because it does explain why nobody lives in this country!”

The girl made a very expressive face that said she now understood a fundamental universal truth.

“Sorry, I should have realised. Let's start again. Hi, I'm Jess, welcome to Brisbane, you can't speak to the naiads.”

“Why not?” asked Penny.

“Because they have less brains than a Griffith student. And I can say that, my brother is one.”

“I've talked to naiads before though,” said Penny. “In New York they understood you. And gave really good advice on where to hide a body.”

Jess laughed. “Well, I guess you have less bush to dump a body in over there. But nah, our naiads are different. At least the ones in Southbank. You get a fake beach, so you get fake naiads. Personally I think it's the chlorine, it bleaches their brains.”

“Huh,” said Penny. 

“If it's river news you want, try the eels,” said Jess. “They're a lot more ugly, but a hell of a lot more useful.”

“And where do you find the eels?” asked Penny. “Because I get the feeling that around here they might upset the swimmers.”

“UQ Lakes,” replied Jess. “You can take the ferry in -” she stuck out a tongue, complete with a further piercing, “25 minutes. They're worth a visit, even with the UQ students.”

“Are you against students in general or just UQ and Griffith students?” said Penny.

“Oh, all of them. I'm very fair. So, are you a magician or…?” she trailed off.

“Sorceress,” said Penny.

“Nice!” said Jess. “I'm a lowly shaman, but we're much more common over this side of the world.”

“I've noticed,” said Penny. “You guys seem to be everywhere.”

“I think it's the right type of magic for the land,” Jess said. “We don't have the cities like London or New York or Hong Kong or anything big, so we need to play with the land as well. It's easier to do that when your focus is a tribe and not a place.”

“Yeah,” said Penny. “It feels really empty over here. And Brisbane's even worse than Sydney.”

“Brisbane's a city that thinks it's a tiny country town,” said Jess. “You sound like you're loving it.” She looked at Penny. “Tell you what, I'll show you some of the better bits if you'd like? Make up for the terrible first impression I give.”

“That sounds nice,” Penny said. “I could use a bit of the local life, it might help.”

“Well, first finish up your burrito, and we'll get you some excellent ice cream. Because while you can get gelato the world over, Cold Rock is hard to come by outside of Australia.” 

“Ice cream is always a good plan,” said Penny. “But I saw at least two places to get it, so we might need to try them both.”

“Sorceress you are a woman after my heart. This could be the start of something wonderful!”


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so short this time! I'll make up for it next time!

Several amazing ice creams and a bus ride later, because Penny decided she'd rather not chance a ferry after ice cream, Penny and Jess arrived at the UQ lakes. Jess took her around the back of a large building that smelled of new concrete and coffee, something that the coffee shop at the base of the building explained. They grabbed soy hot chocolates, not something Penny would usually choose, but Jess told her they were the best she'd ever had. For a drink that was only pretending to have real milk, they weren't bad.

The eels were easy to find, because someone was already talking to them. There was a student sitting, dangling her feet in the lakes who was arguing with the eels.

“look, I'm just saying for the sacrifice I made surely I can get a few more days between the CSSE exam and the MECH exam. I mean, I know that they were on the same day originally, but can't you do me a better deal than the next day?”

“Dream on,” said one of the eels. Or was it all of them at once? The words had appeared in Penny's mind, bypassing her ears entirely. She looked at Jess who mouthed the word telepathy at her.

“We gave you an extra week after SWOTVAC,” the eels continued. “That more than makes up for the two exams over two days. Maybe if you had, engineered, your time better, you would not have such a problem.”

The student sighed. “I know,” she said. “I tell myself I'll start studying earlier every year, but it just doesn't happen. Also that pun was fucking terribeel.”

The eels laughed at that, and one splashed water at her.

“Just for that we will throw in a good sign in for your next sememster,” they said. “Now go, you have a practical. It is sure to be electrifying.”

The student took her legs out of the water and headed off.

“You have brought us a friend Jess,” said the eels.

“Come on,” said Jess, and took Penny down to the water's edge.

“This is Penny,” she told them. “She's a sorceress from London, so I'm showing her round.”

“Hello London Sorceress,” said the eels.

“Hi,” Penny replied. “Jess tells me you're the eels to see for news around here.”

“The river shaman is biased,” the eels said.

Jess shrugged. “I never claimed not to be”

This made the eels laugh again.

“What news do you want Penny?” they asked.

“No idea,” she said. “General headlines?”

“It will be a wet summer,” they said. “Be ready.”

“How bad?” asked Jess, suddenly very serious. “Are we talking the river is higher than usual, or sell any property on the riverbank wet? 2011 levels of wet?”

“He wants to speak to you Jess,” said the eels. “He knows more than we do. We just know that rain is coming.”

“Right,” she said. “Come on London, I need to go.”

They rode back into the city on the ferry.

“Who's this he?” asked Penny. 

“The River,” said Jess, making a complicated hand sign at a swallow that had landed on the bow. It took off at once. “I'll be going a little further up river than you will. If we need to be ready for summer I'll need to talk to him and get my tribe together. We lost a lot of animals and even some people, mystical and otherwise last time this happened. Not to mention how awful cleaning up that much mud is. The more prepared we can be the better.”

“Can I come?” asked Penny.

“Look,” Jess said. “This is more of a natural thing than a city thing. I'm not sure it'd be good for you. Plus mangrove bashing is muddy and kinda gross.”

Penny looked at the shoes she was wearing. They were very nice, and mostly new. She'd found them in a little second hand store on King Street in Sydney. “I think I'll live without meeting the River then,” she said. “I've only just bought these.”

“They are very nice,” Jess agreed. “Tell you what, if you want to meet at the Valley station tomorrow night we can do dinner and a night out.”

“It's a deal,” Penny told her, as the ferry pulled into North Quay. They exchanged numbers and Penny just made it off in time.

Jess waved from the bow of the ferry as it pulled away. Penny walked up the stairs with a groan. Just what she needed after yesterday, more stairs!


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took forever to write, because I really don't do clubbing... So I'm sorry! But we are nearly done!

Night clubs had a certain similarity the world over. If it weren't for the different accents, Penny wasn't sure she would have known that she wasn't in London. Some of the clubs may have been a little smaller yes, but at the end of the day it came down to the pulsing crowds, the thumping of music and the dodgy  fast food  at the end of the night.  Dancing in the middle of the room, the beat of the music and the life of the crowd around her flooding her senses Penny found Jess in the crowd and grinned.

She had met up with Jess and three of her friends at Fortitude Valley Station about ten. They had each decided to show her a favourite bar or club, and the five of them were slightly drunk and exhausted by this point, at  the final club . A quiet bar that served both strange cocktails and offered the chance to play video games had been interesting, but Penny's favourite was most definitely their current location. The mood of the crowd was  gave Penny a brilliant energy rush , although  it always left her with a pounding head the next day. 

Penny didn't think that this current club, Under Neon, was frequented by the more regular members of Brisbane.  A large group of dancers seemed to be members of the Neon Court, and Penny swore that she could see electrical spirits playing in the strobe lights overhead. Jess made drinking motions at her and they headed over to the bar. One of her friends, a tall, pale, man  with an elaborately painted face joined them. 

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked her. 

“Very much!” Penny grinned at him, bouncing with energy. Her heart felt like it was pounding in time to the music.

“Well, we saved the best for last,” he said. “Nobody throws a party quite like the Court.”

“Wait,” said Penny, “They run this place? Is it safe?”

“Mark's trying to be cool,” Jess told her. “The Court visit Under Neon, but it's run by this weird Magician guy.”

“Weird and very pretty,” said Mark. “But I still reckon he's a front.”

Jess flapped a hand dismissively. “We all know their base is in Eagle Street  in some fancy bar . Like the Court can be bothered with the Valley.” 

Penny left them to what seemed to be an ongoing argument and rejoined the crowd.  She danced with the two others she had met. Sarah was a necromancer with the reddest shoes Penny had ever seen, and Lee was a medium who “tried to ignore the dead people as much as possible, because I'm studying music and it really isn't much use”. All four of them had been fun to meet, and Penny was feeling a lot less homesick than she had been earlier. It helped to distract yourself, she decided.

When the club closed they managed to find themselves the traditional post clubbing kebab. Mark, Jess and  Sarah headed off to find a night bus, but Penny and Lee started to walk back towards Roma Street as Lee lived in Milton, which was very close to where Penny was staying. 

“It's a nice walk,” Lee said. “And Milton's ok. You been to Milton yet?”

“Not yet,” said Penny. “What's in Milton?”

“Not a lot to be honest.” they said. “But I guess Paddington has some cafés and that? Some are stupidly expensive, but they have bookshops.” 

“Huh,” replied Penny, who was trying to walk along a line in the footpath, shoes in one hand.

“We've gotta XXXX factory,” said Lee after some thought. “And a stadium. And the Eiffel tower!”

Penny frowned. “Isn't that in France?”

“Nah, not the big one, just, like a really little one.”

Penny recognised where they were when they arrived at King George Square. She thought she saw something in the shadows and squinted at it.

“Shit!” said Lee, and they pulled her back the way they had come, away from the square. 

“What is it?” Penny whispered.

“The lions,” Lee replied. “They're hunting tonight.”

“What lions?”

“The statue ones. They sometimes get hungry.”

The two of them made the decision to  tiptoe past the entrance to the square and go around it as quietly as they could. 

Penny waved goodbye to Lee when they reached the hostel. She fell into bed without bothering to change and was asleep within minutes.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I took so long, have two for the price of one! This is for everyone who had exams recently. I hope they went well!

Penny woke late the next morning. She missed the rush hour and decided to take a sleepy breakfast in Paddington,  after Lee's recommendations the night before. The quiet, sedate energy of old books and coffee felt like just what she needed to start the morning.

While she was walking along the main street Penny swore she could hear voices. There was a faint susurrus, and she shook her head gently to see if that got rid of it. It did nothing but remind her that even a gentle head shaking after a good night out was perhaps unwise. She walked under a jacaranda tree and realised that the whispering had gotten a little louder. 

Usually Penny couldn't hear trees. It was too close to earth magic. There had to be more to it than just the trees. Either that, or she was starting to blend in with the Australians. As this was definitely the wors t case scenario , she stopped and listened to the trees to try and hear what they were saying  and figure the whole thing out .

The jacarandas were beautiful trees. With their soft, falling petals they mimicked the leaves that would be beginning to fall on the other side of the world. Underfoot the ground was covered with tiny, delicate petals,  that would be  trodden into a brown mass  by the end of the day. The scent of the flowers filled her nose, the voices filled her ears and as she looked into the branches she was suddenly hit by a strong sense of panic. Something was wrong, very wrong! She wasn't doing what she had to, she wasn't where she needed to be!

Moving in the direction that seemed to slightly alleviate her fear Penny walked back towards Roma Street as fast as she could and arrived on one of the bus platforms. She got on the number 66, which was packed with both the very old, and the relatively young. It was the strange mix of students and pensioners you got on mid-morning buses. Penny knew instinctively that she was doing the right thing, but the anxiety the trees had induced in her was still strong. She felt as though her stomach was tied in knots and her fingers frantically tapped out a rhythm on the bus pole. 

She followed the bus route to its end and arrived at the UQ lakes, which she recognised from the visit two days beforehand. Instead of walking around to the eels, she headed up the hill following the mob of students that had been on her bus. The whispering was growing more insistent, and it seemed to grow in strength with every tree she passed. 

The voices guided her to a sweet shop, where she bought a large bag of pick n mix, then on to a newsagent. Knowing that there was something very important that she needed to do, that the voices needed her to do, and something she would need a great deal of strength and caffeine to cope with, Penny bought a notepad, pen and sat down at a café with a very large coffee. It was only when she had drunk the whole coffee did she blink, and come back to her senses.

She had used up two-thirds of the notebook, and to her surprise it was filled with the kinds of revision notes she remembered from her A-levels. A mixture of verb conjugation, historical dates and chemical formulas where written on the pages, with little coherent order, but she had clearly written them in a hurry. The question was, why?  Penny ordered another coffee and tried to figure out what had just happened. 

“What do you mean you haven't started yet?”

A student at the table next to her was talking to a friend. 

“I just forgot to start man. I got caught up in everything and I didn't realise how close exams had gotten.”

“Shit Chris, how can you forget? Between the trees and the lecturers telling you every lecture you might have taken a hint.”

“You say that like I've been going to the lectures...”

The two of them wandered off, but they had given Penny a hint of what may have happened.  She stopped one of the passing waiters. 

“Excuse me,” Penny asked. “Is there a connection between the jacarandas and exams?”

“If you are a student, I guess so?” said the waiter. “The lecturers like to joke that you should start studying for the end of year when the jacarandas start to bloom. But if you're not a student it doesn't really effect you.” He smiled and went back to clearing tables, the lunch rush still in full swing.

Penny left, wondering how to admire the trees without getting sucked back into a nervous whirlwind of study. Maybe the eels would know? She wasn't sure who else to ask. She would need to prepare though. Using her new stationery to make a sign, she found a large grass courtyard and sat in the middle of it. The sign read “Tree puns needed, 50c per pun”.  She might be a long way from home and out of her comfort zone, but students were students, and money was a sure way to get them to do anything. While talking to eels was not strictly speaking urban magic, she wanted to be able to control herself in the presence of flowers. And hey, it couldn't hurt to _branch_ out, could it?


	6. Plus One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your patience and for reading this! Most of it is just homesick blather, but I did try and make it interesting. I hope you liked it!

It had been three weeks since Penny had arrived in Brisbane, and she was starting to understand why people might like the city. She didn't feel at home there, or comfortable, but she could see some of its beauty. For Penny, Brisbane was always nicest from the river. Jess had shown her around on the ferries, and even taken her out on a friend's boat on one memorable day. So with the temperature climbing this particular Wednesday and nothing to do, Penny decided to ride the free ferry for a little while.

She sprawled on one of the seats on top of the ferry, sunglasses on, trying to catch a breeze off the river. 

“Do you mind if I sit here?” asked a voice.

Penny looked away from the restaurants of Eagle Street Pier towards  whoever had spoken . A woman smiled at her and gestured at the space next to her. 

“Not at all!” Penny said. “Go ahead.”

The woman sat on the bench. 

“I hope you don't mind my asking,” she said. “But is that an English accent I hear?”

“I'm from London,” Penny replied.

The woman laughed. “So am I,” she said.

“You sound very Australian,” said Penny. “How long have you not lived in London?”

“I've been over here for about ten years,” she said. “How are you finding it?”

“It's,” Penny paused. “Different? And not just as a whole, but the little things you didn't think would be. Like, even the cities are less busy, and the coffee tastes different, and you cannot get proper fish and chips anywhere!”

“The fish and chips are very different, aren't they?” said the woman. “Although I am growing used to the Australian chips slowly.”

“I think at this point I would actually kiss anyone who brought me real fish and chips,” said Penny. 

“Well,” said the woman. “You don't have to kiss me, but are you doing anything now?”

“Killing time and trying to stay a little cool,” Penny replied. “But if you are about to take me to fish and chips I would stop anything.”

“If we get off next time the ferry pulls into Southbank we can take a train to Birkdale,” the woman said. “And they have a British fish and chip shop there. You can even get PG Tips!” 

“I don't even know your name,” said Penny, “But I think you must be some sort of miracle worker.”

“Joanne,” said the woman. “And you are?”

“Penny.” 

…

It was a long train ride to Birkdale, but the train carriage was cool  and Joanne pointed out things to Penny as they passed. Penny could feel them pulling further and further away from the city and used her magic to cling onto the train line as hard as she could. It gave her the link she needed to get by. 

“Are you ok Penny?,” asked Joanne. “You look a little pale.”

“Just a little...” Penny searched for a word that didn't automatically make her sound delusional. “Homesick.”

“I promise that when we arrive in Birkdale you will feel less homesick,” said Joanne. “The vinegar can fix anything.”

O utside the window mangroves drifted by, making it look as though the train was marooned in a wild forest, not in a city.

…

“This is amazing,” said Penny. “You are amazing. This fish is amazing.”

“You look a little better,” said Joanne.

“I feel much better,” Penny replied. And she did. While she may have been on the outskirts of a city, there was a train station nearby, a busy road, a shopping centre and a taste of home in her mouth.

…

That night she sent her monthly report to Matthew by email. Well, to Matthew via Kelly, Matthew could never be guaranteed to read his own emails. 

“I think I understand why I need to travel,” she wrote. “It's hard, and it can be lonely and all I want to do is come home. I miss the feeling of London underfoot, and the people, the weather, everything. But this is making me a stronger sorceress. I've found types of magic that I didn't even know existed, and met people from the magical community in every place I've been. I've had to struggle with wild magic, and the hidden traps every city has that are unique to their geography and history. 

Brisbane is the least city, city I have ever been to. It doesn't have the buzz and the rush that other cities have. The natural world seems to be as  much a part of the city as the urban world is. What it does have is good people, wonderful ice-cream and what nearly amounts to a high street. I don't think I could ever be comfortable in this city, but I have learnt that from the river at night the city glows with hundreds of lights and is beautiful. 

I'm leaving for Perth in a few days, and then it's only seven months until I arrive back in London. I miss it every day, but I'm having fun, meeting people and doing some awesome magic. I talked to some eels, and even found real fish and chips! Finally! 

Don't do anything stupid until I get back Matthew! 

Also, Kelly, I found you the cutest highlighters. They're in the post as we speak. Or email...

Until next month, Penny out!”


End file.
